The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty [219]
It seemed to them he had little to do!
Hadn't he surely, just before they caught him, been pounding his chest with his fists? Bragging on himself? It seemed to them they could still hear in the beating air of night the wild tattoo of pride he must have struck off. His silly, brief, overriding little show they could well imagine there in his tent of separation in the middle of the woods, in the night. Minnowy thing that matched his candle flame, naked as he was with that, he thought he shone forth too. Didn't he?
Nevertheless, standing there with the tent slanting over him and his arm knobby as it reached up and his head bent a little, he looked rather at loose ends.
"We can call like an owl," Nina suggested. But Jinny Love thought in terms of the future. "I'll tell on him, in Morgana tomorrow. He's the most conceited Boy Scout in the whole troop; and's bowlegged.
"You and I will always be old maids," she added.
Then they went up and joined the singing.
THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS
Father, I wish I could talk to you, wherever you are right now.
Mother said, Where have you been, son?—Nowhere, Mother.—I wish you wouldn't sound so unhappy, son. You could come back to MacLain and live with me now.—I can't do that, Mother. You know I have to stay in Morgana.
When I slammed the door of the bank I rolled down my sleeves and stood for some time looking out at the cotton field behind Mr. Wiley Bowles' across the street, until it nearly put me to sleep and then woke me up like a light turned on in my face. Woodrow Spights had been gone a few minutes or so. I got in my car and drove up the street, turned around at the foot of Jinny's driveway (yonder went Woody) and drove down again. I turned around in our old driveway, where Miss Francine had the sprinkler running, and made the same trip. The thing everybody does every day, except not by themselves.
There was Maideen Sumrall on the drugstore step waving a little green handkerchief. When I didn't remember to stop I saw the handkerchief pulled down. I turned again, to pick her up, but she'd caught her ride with Red Ferguson.
So I went to my room. Bella, Miss Francine Murphy's little dog, panted all the time—she was sick. I always went out in the backyard and spoke to her. Poor Bella, how do you do, lady? Is it hot, do they leave you alone?
Mother said on the phone, Have you been out somewhere, son?— Just to get a little air.—I can tell you're all peaked. And you keep things from me, I don't understand. You're as bad as Eugene Hudson. Now I have two sons keeping things from me.—I haven't been anywhere, where would I go?—If you came back with me, to MacLain Courthouse, everything would be all right. I know you won't eat at Miss Francine's table, not her biscuit.—It's as good as Jinny's, Mother.
But Eugene's safe in California, that's what we think.
When the bank opened, Miss Perdita Mayo came up to my window and hollered, "Randall, when are you going back to your precious wife? You forgive her, now you hear? That's no way to do, bear grudges. Your mother never bore your father a single grudge in her life, and he made her life right hard. I tell you, how do you suppose he made her life? She don't bear him a grudge. We're all human on earth. Where's little old Woodrow this morning, late to work or you done something to him? I still think of him a boy in knee britches and Buster Brown bob, riding that pony, that extravagant pony, cost a hundred dollars. Woodrow: a little common but so smart. Felix Spights never overcharged a customer, and Miss Billy Texas amounted to a good deal before she got like she is now; and Missie could always play the piano better than average; Little Sister too young to tell yet. Ah, I'm a woman that's been clear around the world in my rocking chair, and I tell you we all get surprises now and then. But you march on back to your wife, Ran MacLain. You hear? It's a thing of the flesh not the spirit, it'll pass. Jinny'll get over this in three four months. You hear me? And you go back nice!."
"Still hotter today,